Best written characters
Or is that too specific?
Best written characters
Or is that too specific?
Best combination of mechanics and story. For games that are particularly well designed or innovative in how the mechanics and story mesh together. This might be kind of vague but itās something Iād like to see more of.
The Xyzzyās āBest NPCsā award works out to this in practice, so I donāt think itās too specific! Frankly, āBest Written Charactersā is probably a better description of the category as it currently stands in 2022. Maybe āBest Castā would be a pithier title for the same concept, though?
Outstanding Puzzle Design
Best Use of Interactivity
(I feel strongly that we should celebrate games who use the medium to the fullest - ideally, this award would go to something that couldnāt be done as anything but IF).
Best visual design
Best artwork (as opposed to graphics above, which seems more nebulous to me)
Best game about repairing a spaceship
Best title!
Iāve updated the main post, but here are the current nominations past the 15-vote threshhold:
Nominations that have passed the fifteen vote threshhold:
-Outstanding Game of the Year (automatically included)
-Outstanding Debut
-Outstanding Game with a play time over 2 hours
-Outstanding Short Game
-Outstanding Unawarded Game
-Outstanding Feelies
-Trailblazer Award
-Oustanding (insert language here) Game (currently thinking French, German, Spanish; not sure about English, as its already so represented and < 5 non-English games ever had XYZZY nominations)
-Hanonās suggestion changing ābestā to āoutstandingā (reflected in list)
-Outstanding Worldbuilding
-Outstanding (Genre) Game, with genres including Comedy, Drama, Horror
People will not be required to vote in each category; every contest will be a separate poll, and people can vote in whichever category they desire.
āOutstanding non-English Language Gameā?
I made that suggestion above, but it d didnāt get as many votes as the separate languages idea.
I figure this first year might be a bit rough, but it should settle down in subsequent years. Any categories with low votes will get the ax!
Well, if youāre going to do this, I think it should reflect more genres. I just listed a few. But Iād be pretty ticked off if I wrote a badass sci-fi game and there was no sci-fi category.
What if there are only a few games eligible for a category in a given year (e.g. games with feelies). Will there be a minimum number of games required in order to be able to vote on a category?
Also, what happens if a category is very similar to an existing XYZZY Awards category?
My plan is to axe any category vote with less than 5 games.
Overlap with XYZZY is fine; while Iām not intending to replace the awards, and havenāt tried to ensure that they meet the same needs, Iām comfortable with any amount of overlap.
Do you have a proposed list?
I can think of comedy, drama, horror, sci-fi, western (not enough people though lol), mystery, fantasy, historical.
thriller, romance, slice of lifeā¦
What seems logical, since categorizing all these games seems like a ton of work, and because genres are not evenly represented, is to do the first year with some lumped-together genres. Like niche genres all together: historical/western/noir/gothic. Fantasy/sci-fi (although there may be enough of each to justify their own categories). Horror/thriller/espionage/mystery. Romance/drama/slice of life/autobiographical. Comedy/satire/farce.
Get authors to self-identify, ideally on IFDB when they list so you donāt have to do it. If I tried to game the system by listing āThe Spectatorsā as a comedy because thereās one joke in it, Iād get disqualified.
See how the numbers pan out in the first year and then start extending the categories as the data justifies it.
Just an idea.
I think we can handle the multiple genres by having one big poll for āoutstanding game in a specific genreā and people can vote for games with the genre in the vote. Then any genre with at least 5 games receiving votes and a top game with at least 5 votes can get an award.
Edit: cross-posted, but I could see either idea working or a combination of both.
This system could also work for games in individual programming languages.
Right, you end up with combinatorial explosion with genres if you go far outside ādrama/comedy/SFFā. There isnāt going to be a Western every year.
What about:
Cuz then those genre games could fall into any one. Itās more the game that makes you laugh, the game that gave you pathos, and the game that had the coolest lasers/unicorns/masked killer and you donāt end up with like one in each micro-genre category.
EDIT: Mathbrush basically said that - have a singular āCoolest Use of Genreā type category that you could have a bigger pool for and award that person who does a game where they heavily did the research.
Maybe āOutstanding Genre/Period Representationā?